All the pieces

Another year older and this one was a tough one. I think if I didn't have my two beautiful and full of life littles with me I would have sobbed myself a freakin' ocean! Screw the crying a river! I don't know what it was about this particular year. Last year was as though nothing was changing. I was 2 months postpartum and couldn't do much but it still didn't feel like this one. It was exciting because I became a mama twice over :)
This year..... Well, this year brought on the very evident awareness that I am one step closer to my demise but also a huge step closer to life. I am talking about the life you live when you are older, wiser and free because of learning from your past mistakes. Growing more comfortable in your own skin. Obviously we are all born on the earth with a ticking time bomb that we push down inside of us to mute so that we can live our lives. For a good portion of our lives, (particularly high school years and for some, college years) we live as though we are immortal. We feel so alive and are ignorant to any hard life consequences or possibilities resulting from our actions. We just live. Then time happens and life happens. There is a change somewhere along the way. For me, I became this super guarded person. I lost the free spirit and childlike playfulness I once had. Still have somewhere inside this body! With this came a tough exterior, an over guarded heart, and a seriousness that aggravates me more often than not.
It isn't that I am necessarily older that is hard hitting for me this year. It is more that I am just now soul searching to find and grab hold onto who I am. Who I have always been. Who I want to be.Why in bloody hell did this take me so long to learn??? Why have I been so afraid to just really be myself. In past years, younger more frivolous ones, it came so easy. Just like breathing. Now, it is a struggle. More like a balance. It no longer is about everyone else around me. It is simply about ME. Living my life as the person I am, always have been, and want to be. Living my life authentically and as true to myself as I can. I am not saying throw my responsibilities to the wind and play a game of Russian roulette with my life. As I may have been doing in my teenage years. I am talking about no longer allowing people to rule over me. No longer allowing the toxicity of others to affect me. No longer living my life in fear. Taking action even though the possibility of failure lies closely ahead. Taking chances with faith as my backing. Carefully hand picking who I allow into my life as though picking ripe apples off a tree, but all the while knowing that I may acquire some rotten ones to dispose of along the way. Finding my inner strength and confidence but not in an arrogant way. Accepting all of my past, the great, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Accepting all of my beauty and my faults because all of these intricacies are the recipe for who I am. Now, they just need to be embraced and loved. The important people, the shiny ripe apples, anyone worth anything in my life will love me in all of my entirety. 

Coming to this realization, now, is what made this a difficult birthday. I mentally reassessed my life. I scanned back and to the present. I realized that any faults were no fault but my very own. I remembered the lessons I had learned. I remembered all the pain I have been through. I smiled at where I am in my life now. I laughed joyfully at where my soul searching journey has taken me thus far and saw a glimpse of where it is to take me. Lost in all of this thought is what made me want to sob an ocean. Out of pain and hurt, joy and happiness, fear and courage, fault and strength. Lost in all of the emotions and emotional states I have ever been in but shoved downward with my boots. Cramming down so hard and in place building a brick wall that has kept me safe all of these years. Now, with this birthday I can feel those abandoned emotions seeping slowly through the wall I built so sturdy all of these years. The emotions coming up whipping like a tornado ready to bust out and be reckoned with. Ready to be felt. Ready to finally be released. Free. So, not on my birthday did this release, begging to happen, occur. Because with two littles, I had to build one last brick to help keep them in place for just a little while longer. I hear them loud and clear now. And one day very soon I will release them, even if a little at a time. I will heed my inner voice. I will set them free and in return allow myself to start living. This year was the year of true realization for me. I am FINALLY okay with this. I am FINALLY ready to embrace and love myself and all of the pieces that contribute to who I am.